On my way to swim laps yesterday, I listened to the second half of the Happiness Lab podcast’s exploration of fun. In the episode, the host interviews a dad who had a giant Duh moment one day as he drove his child from chess lessons to music lessons then sat in his car in the parking lot to wait for her.
He realized he was trying to instill in her a pursuit of learning, yet he had stopped learning new skills years ago. When confronted with a novel activity he might learn, as an adult he figured, “Why bother? I’m grown, I’m not going to be great at it — I’m past my learning days,” and so he kept with the things he knows.
And then he said something that struck me: that learning a new skill is an exercise in mindfulness. Typically, when you learn something new, you are completely immersed in that thing. Your attention is focused on it. You are fully in the present moment. I thought about our recent surf lessons and realized how true this is.
Mindfulness feels elusive. It’s something many of us have to remind ourselves to cultivate. Learning automatically puts us in that state. Learning how to do something new requires that we concentrate on what is happening in the moment.
It provides another bonus, too. It relieves boredom. As an adult, I find comfort and stability in routine. But a stable routine can easily become a monotonous rut. After his Aha moment, the dad in the podcast episode, Tom Vanderbilt, decided to embrace being a beginner and to learn just for the sake of learning. I love this mindset. I have a million skills I want to learn.
Next time I feel bored, stuck, or stagnant, I need to remind myself to learn how do do something new. It will likely bring both novelty and mindfulness into my life.
One of the crappy things about being young when you go to college is that you don’t have a clue what you want to do with your life. Not really. You’re 18 years old, still a kid, dedicating four years and tens of thousands of dollars to a path that, eh, it sounded good at the time.
Me, I got my degree in ecology. I liked nature, and wanted to save the coral reefs, and I was good in science. Ecology seemed a natural choice. The courses were interesting when a passionate professor brought the material to life, but when I got home, I resented the textbooks and the equations and the biochem courses that required I actually study. I resented them because they got in the way of my reading.
I should have gotten a clue when the classes I got excited about were my literature courses. When every quarter, if I could squeeze an elective in, I sat with the catalog and my highlighter, devouring ENGL course descriptions and wishing I could sign up for every one.
I don’t know why I didn’t know then. It seems so obvious now. I think my ecology choice was largely influenced by an aptitude for science that seemed special somehow. In high school, I saw classmates struggle with chemistry and algebra, and when those subjects weren’t that hard for me, I thought, “Well, I guess this is my talent. This is what I should do with my life.” And then I’d crack a Stephen King novel and read til 3 in the morning.
Now, as a near-40 woman who left the scientific field years ago (turns out I don’t have the aptitude or stamina for practicing science, only for learning what other scientists have already figured out), I regret I didn’t know myself better when I chose my path. There is a craving in me that is difficult to quell. The courses I would take if I had the chance now! Creative writing, post Civil War American Literature, Creative Nonfiction, African American Fiction, Literary Magazine Editing and Publishing. I want to read and write and discuss and learn, not science, but language and literature. There is so much I do not know, and I feel like I’m spinning around in circles trying to figure out where to begin.
It makes me sad, the groping in the dark, the missed opportunity. Like most college aged kids, I just didn’t know. I didn’t know to take a close look at how I liked to spend my time, what my natural tendencies were, that Should was different from where my heart and mind truly lay. Now, it’s too late for that formal education. We need to be saving for our kids’ college, not another degree for me.
So, here I am, trying to find my way as a writer on my own, spinning around in circles, looking for a spotting point. A direction to look so I won’t get dizzy. A place to focus so I won’t fall down. I’m doing it, in the sense that I’m reading books and writing words on a page. That’s a start, right? But I wish I would have known then, when I still had the chance. When I would have had guidance, and mentoring, and feedback. When I would have had classmates and teachers. When I wouldn’t have been so alone.
Our seven year old daughter gave me a gift this Christmas that continues to impress me, not because of the gift itself, but because of her reason for giving it.
I am a baker. I have loved to bake since I first stood on a wooden gray stool next to my mom and felt chocolate chip cookie dough stiffen as I stirred flour into it. As I matured as a baker, I became interested in learning more about the science behind baking, about ingredients, and about how to make baked goods even better. I’ve collected bread and pastry books over the years, and have deepened my understanding of yeast doughs, but more recently, I have expressed often, and to whomever will listen, that I’d really like to understand cakes and desserts better. Hint hint.
So I was thrilled when I ripped the shiny red paper off of our daughter’s gift to me. She sat at my knee with her hands clasped, and her eyes glittered above her “I hope you like it!” grin. The gift was Maida Heatter’s Book of Great Chocolate Desserts. I oohed and aahed and hugged our daughter, laughing with her infectious excitement, as her dad explained that they had done tons of research trying to find a good baking book, and that apparently this Maida Heatter was THE woman for baked desserts. None of us had ever heard of her, but I was touched by the amount of thought that had gone into this gift.
I thumbed through the recipes and our daughter climbed into the chair with me. “Thank you, sweetie,” I said, and kissed the top of her head.
“You’re welcome, Mommy.” She put her arms around me and said, “I got you this because I really want to bake with you.”
I stopped thumbing and looked at her sweet, earnest face. I thought of all the times she asked to help in the kitchen, and all the times I was too rushed, or too uptight about measuring the flour myself. I thought about her putting on her apron just to tear open packets for her Easy Bake Oven, and the glee she felt every time I asked her to measure the sugar or crack an egg for real baking.
“I would love that, baby.” And I meant it. Though she didn’t realize it, her desire to bake with me, after all my crabbiness and stinginess in the kitchen, was her true gift. She was giving me an opportunity to slow down and teach her the art of baking. An opportunity to learn it myself. An opportunity to spend time with my daughter, doing something we both love.
Since that day, we have made an orange chocolate loaf cake, two kinds of brownies, a chocolate pumpkin cake, and our most recent creation, a chocolate-marbleized cheesecake. All from this mysterious woman’s cookbook. Because of the depth of our daughter’s gift, I make sure to make an event of baking these creations together. I say yes when she asks, “Can I measure the vanilla? Can I do the mixer? Can I separate the eggs?”
She now adds fractions in her head, knows you can make 3/4 of a cup by either using a half cup plus a quarter cup or three quarter cup measures, and can tell you why you use a double boiler to melt chocolate. She knows she must be exact with flour, baking soda, and baking powder, but that vanilla is just for flavor, not for chemistry, and so it’s okay if you dump a little more. She uses caution when reaching over burners to turn on the oven, knows to turn pot handles so they don’t hang over the edge, loves to melt chocolate.
And if someone asks her what she wants to be when she grows up? She says, “An artist or,” be still my heart, “A pastry chef.”
As for me, I am learning, too. About baking, yes, but even more than that. With this gift, our daughter has taught me to teach her. To allow. To say yes. She has opened me to taking risks. To letting her measure the flour, the salt, the vanilla. To letting her get close enough to feel the heat of the stove and the oven. To let her spill, and wipe up her mess.
For our seven year old daughter, I am learning to let go, a little bit, of control.
From our seven year old daughter, I am learning how to trust.
When my foodie friend was over, she did a double take when she saw the new addition to our cookbooks. “Oh my God! Maida Heatter!” She grabbed the manual and studied the cover. “My old boss at Delightful Bitefuls – remember? the catering company in Athens? – she used to always talk about ‘Maeeda Heeta’ this and ‘Maeeda Heeta’ that.” My friend flipped the book over and read the reviews. “So that’s how you spell her name. I could never figure it out to find her cookbooks. And here she is.”
Butterfly Mind 